


Anything But Routine

by holmes221b



Category: The Unit
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Fear of Flying, Gen, Implied Torture, PTSD, mildly suicidial behavior, references to non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holmes221b/pseuds/holmes221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the routine missions that get you killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Code Name Mayinga

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to allthatisbizarre on tumblr. Your eagerness for this fic motivates me to write.

_Somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan_

_'It's the routine missions that get you killed,'_ Charlie Grey grumbled to himself as he applied pressure to the bullet wound in his leg.

Alpha team had been in Afghanistan to assassinate a Taliban leader..or something like that, Charlie wasn't very clear on the details right then.

 _'Probably got a concussion,'_ he decided crossly.

"Hello?"

Charlie whipped his head around to look over in the direction of the voice. He'd thought that he was was alone in this dark, dank..."dungeon" seemed to be a fitting descriptor of where he was being held.

A young woman dressed in well-worn jeans and long sleeved shirt, thin and dirty, hesitantly approached the Delta Force operative. "You're hurt."

 _'American accent,'_ he noted, wondering why this woman was being held here--and who she was. He didn't remember hearing anything about an American citizen being held hostage by the Taliban (or whoever their captors were, it was possible that this was a splinter group, after all). She had to have been down here for at least a week or so, going by how thin she was (though she wasn't emaciated, so either she was being fed something or it'd been less than four weeks). And she looked _young_ , like preteen young. Charlie hoped she just looked young for her age.

Not waiting for a response, the woman took off her shirt and held it out to him. "Sorry it's dirty, but it's probably better than your hands."

Charlie took the shirt from her and wrapped it around his leg (and the already soaked thru scarf he'd already placed on the wound). "Thanks."

"I can try and get some supplies from our _captors_ ," she offered--though there was an intense amount of hatred in how she said the last word.

"Not if it gets you in trouble," Charlie insisted.

"I'm more valuable to them alive," she assured him, "they grabbed me because they needed a doctor. I've made it clear to them that if they tried anything with me, I'd stop treating their men."

"You make yourself too much trouble to keep around, they'll just kill you anyways," Charlie observed.

The woman shrugged.

"I know, but if I'm dead, I still won't be treating them, so I still win," she pointed out.

Charlie whistled. This woman was _cold-blooded_.

She blushed.

"It's the _truth_ ," she insisted, adding, "I've been held here awhile, I've had plenty of time to think about my future."

A guard banged the barrel of his rifle against the bars of the cell door, shouting something in a local dialect.

The woman rolled her eyes, and snapped back at the guard with a curt reply in the same language.

The guard spat in her face, then left them alone again.

Charlie was unfamiliar with the particular dialect used, and didn't have much of a clue as to what the conversation had been about--though he was fairly certain that his fellow prisoner had angered the guard.

"What did he want?" he asked.

"That _man_ wanted me to change the bandages on his wounded colleagues," she explained, "I told him that they could wait and to get me my kit, so I could take a look at the cut on your other leg."

"Cut? What cut? I only have a bullet wound in my right thigh," Charlie insisted, confused.

The woman chuckled.

"Your brain's so focused on the bullet wound that you never noticed the cut on your ankle," she explained, pointing at his left ankle and the blood soaked boot.

"The hell?" Charlie wondered, "It cut thru my _boot_ , whatever it was."

"Might have been a bullet, as I'm sure there was more than one bullet shot in your direction when you got hit," the woman observed wryly.

The guard returned, sans kit.

He shouted something threateningly at the woman.

"Looks like I won't be able to take a look at your ankle like I wanted," the woman announced with an annoyed sigh. "I'll be back, don't start any revolutions without me."

* * *

When the woman returned, she had a black eye and a roll of gauze. She must have sensed Charlie's concern, because the first words out of her mouth were: "Don't worry, this was just because they didn't want me wasting supplies treating you."

"If that was supposed to be reassuring, it didn't work," Charlie remarked.

"Wasn't trying to reassure you that you weren't going to die," the woman pointed out, "Only assuring you that I didn't do anything excessively stupid."

"I wasn't worried about that."

"Right," the woman replied, "anyways, what should I call you?"

The subject change caught Charlie off-guard. "What?"

"Your name, what is it? I really can't keep referring to you as 'American Shortie', especially since you're taller than me."

"Oh, uh, Mike," Charlie lied.

"Oh, so we're not using real names?" she asked, "That's cool. Call me 'Mayinga' then, Mike."

Mayinga then sat down next to Charlie. "Take your boot off and I'll wrap up your ankle."

"So bossy, Mayinga," he remarked, as he carefully slipped the boot off. He wasn't able to suppress a wince as he jostled his injured ankle.

"This isn't me being bossy, this is me being a doctor."

"There's a difference?"

Mayinga muttered something under her breath.

* * *

After dinner (which consisted of a cup of dirty water and nothing else), Mayinga brought up the issue of escape, in her blunt way.

"We have two days before we become stars of a terrorist viral video," she informed Charlie.

"I thought they wanted to keep you around?"

"I didn't tell you about my expiration date," Mayinga admitted, "I've been using my skills to buy myself time to escape, and now I've run out of tricks."

"What's happening in two days, then?" Charlie asked, "I mean, besides us losing our heads."

"The men I've been treating, they're going to be recovered by then," Mayinga replied, "We have to be gone by then. Or yes, we are losing our heads, Mike. And I'm surprisingly still pretty attached to my head. I don't know about you."

"I'm attached to mine," Charlie confirmed.

"Good, because it's going to take both of us to get out of here with our heads."

* * *

The next morning, their escape plan was thrown awry by Mayinga waking up with a nasty cough--and a matching fever.

"Probably pneumonia," the doctor coughed, "we're going to have to rethink our jailbreak, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but don't worry, we'll get--" Charlie began to say when there was the sound of gunfire echoing thru the network of caves their captors hid in to avoid discovery by the American UAVs and spy satellites.

Mayinga flinched at the sound, triggering a nasty coughing fit that left her gasping for air, triggering memories of another time when a fellow prisoner had a bad cold.

A welcome face appeared on the other side of the bars.

"I see you managed to find a girl," Hector observed drily as he unlocked the door. He was dressed in local garb, an indication of how the rest of Alpha team had managed to get the information they needed to locate their missing teammate.

"I _found_ a doctor," Charlie corrected him.

Mayinga coughed.

"I don't know about y'all, but I'd like to get out of here."

Hector ended up having to help Charlie out on his own, while it was all Mayinga could do to walk out on her own two feet. But they made it all the way to the meeting point, arriving at about the same time as the rest of the team did.

Their ride arrived minutes later.

* * *

There was a medic waiting on the helicopter, and Mayinga was quick to irritate him (much to the amusement of the other passengers).

"Ma'am, if you don't lie down, I will sedate you," the medic warned.

Mayinga coughed. "He's _my_ patient first, man."

"You're _both_ my patients right now, ma'am, and you need to lie down," the medic snapped.

"I'll lie down when we get to the base," Mayinga insisted, before asking the medic what Charlie's blood pressure was.

"Not telling you, ma'am," the medic replied, audibly grinding his teeth. "Lie down."

"Tell me his blood pressure and then I'll lie down."

"Lie down first," the medic insisted.

"We're almost to the base, why don't you lie down, ma'am," Bob suggested, the only member of the team brave enough--or perhaps foolish enough--to interrupt the disagreement between the two medical professionals.

Mayinga whirled around and faced Bob.

"Why don't you stand down, soldier?" she snapped, "I'm probably a higher rank than you, anyways. If I were in the military."

Fortunately, that was when the pilot hollered at everyone to buckle up, as they were were about to land.

"Thank god!" the medic exclaimed. "She's worse than any of you special ops types!"


	2. Not Quite Unexpected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayinga's identity finally revealed...and other things happen too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "On screen" minor character death in this chapter.  
> 2\. USAMRIID is pronounced "you-sam-rid". The Army researches defenses against bioweapons and diseases that troops might encounter while deployed there.

One week later

Charlie was glad that he hadn't had to stay in the hospital for long, grateful for Hector's willingness in letting him stay over while his wounds healed. Mayinga, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. She had only gotten worse, and was now in intensive care at the base hospital. Charlie visited her in the hospital every day, even if she wasn't aware of his presence.

He wondered who she really was.

"Carlito," Hector called, sticking his head into Mayinga's hospital room, "the Colonel wants to talk to you."

* * *

"Grey, what do you know about your friend?" Colonel Ryan asked.

"Not much," Charlie replied, "Only that she is an American doctor, and that the name she gave me--Mayinga--isn't her real name."

The colonel sighed.

"What I am about to tell you does not leave this room, Grey."

* * *

Back at the hospital, Mayinga was starting to improve, as her fever finally began to break. 

A doctor entered her room, and checked her chart, double-checking that he was in the right room.

* * *

"Mayinga is her code name," Colonel Ryan informed Charlie, "Her real name is Daisy Paul."

"Who does she work for? CIA?" Charlie asked, "And why haven't they showed up?"

"Doctor Paul worked for USAMRIID as a virologist. Until last year, when she suddenly quit to work as a 'country doctor' in Afghanistan."

"Why did she do that?" Charlie asked, "That doesn't make sense."

"Officially, it's because she felt that she wasn't doing enough good at USAMRIID," Ryan replied, "but in truth, she did it because she was recruited by Army Intelligence to gather information on locals plotting attacks against US troops."

* * *

The doctor took an empty syringe out of his lab coat pocket and reached for Mayinga's--for Daisy Paul's IV line. Uncapping the syringe one-handed, he moved to inject a lethal bubble of air into the patient's IV line.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," Mack Gerhardt stated, aiming a gun at the man standing over the woman who had been rescued alongside his teammate.

"Go ahead, shoot me," the man dared Mack, "it won't save your precious doctor."

Mack cocked his gun.

"Last chance," he warned.

The assassin depressed the plunger, injecting the air bubble into the IV line. Mack fired his gun, killing the assassin instantly.

The thunder of the gun going off in the relatively small room woke up the still somewhat feverish Daisy, her flailing resulting in her yanking out her IV line just before the air bubble could enter her bloodstream.

* * *

The colonel's phone buzzed. He picked it up and answered it.

"Colonel Ryan."

Charlie strained to hear what was being said on the other end, but was unable to catch what was being said.

"Secure the hospital, no one in or out," Ryan ordered, "I'm on my way."

 


	3. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The doctor possesses valuable information, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to post this, I was more interested in posting stuff relating to Dragon Age than to posting updates to this fic, so now I have several chapters all ready to be typed up...so there will be several updates the next couple of days, probably.  
> Also, this part is kinda short, I think....

_Hospital_

Charlie rode back to the hospital with Hector, even though the Colonel had expressly directed Hector to drop Charlie off at home before coming to the hospital.

The Colonel glared at them both when they showed up in Doctor Paul's new hospital room, but he didn't have the chance to rebuke them for disobeying orders, as Doctor Paul was completely awake by this point.

"Michael! It's wonderful to see you!" the doctor exclaimed happily. "Your friends here assured me that you were limping around, but I couldn't believe them until now, now that I've seen you with my own eyes."

Charlie smiled. "I hope they've not told you any lies, Doctor."

"If they did, I'm not going to believe them unless you say otherwise" Daisy assured him, before asking, "Since you know my name now, does this mean I get to know yours?"

Charlie nodded. "It's only fair. It's Charles. Charles Grey. Please call me 'Charlie', though."

"Well, Charlie," Daisy stated, "I'm sorry to say that it looks like I brought trouble to your home and I apologize for that."

"Trouble?" Charlie asked.

"Somehow word got out that Doctor Paul is here and there's a price on her head.," Mack explained. "Luckily I happened to be passing by, though, and was able to prevent an assassin from killing her."

"It wasn't chance," Daisy insisted, "you knew I was in trouble and coming to protect me. You just happened to arrive at the right moment."

"Doesn't matter," the Colonel snapped. "What matters is finding out how word got out that Doctor Paul is here."

"There's a mole in Army Intell," Daisy stated, "I'm sure of it. That's has got to be how I ended up getting caught by that lovely little terrorist cell that also nabbed Charlie."

"What makes you so sure of that, Doctor?" Blaine inquired.

"They knew all the languages I was officially fluent in and didn't use any of them when they wanted to speak in secret in my presence," Daisy explained, "In fact, they were speaking quite clumsily in Ukrainian, a language I am somewhat fluent in but isn't listed in my file."

"This mole would certainly want you dead if they were aware that you knew of their existence," Hector observed.

"I doubt that the mole is the true benefactor of having me killed," Daisy remarked drily.

"You sound like you have someone in mind," Brown remarked.

Daisy nodded.

"I do," she confirmed, "Vladimir Stasko."

"The Ukrainian arms dealer?" Mack asked, surprised.

Daisy nodded again.

"What did you do to piss him off?" Charlie asked.

"I know what he really looks like," the doctor replied, "I once saved his life when he was dying of malaria."

"How did you survive that encounter?" Blaine asked, "no one who's seen him face to face has lived to talk about it."

"I bargained with his bodyguards for my life as repayment for saving Stasko's," Daisy replied, "unfortunately, Stasko refused to honor that bargin after he recovered."

"Hence the price on your head," Brown stated.

Daisy shook her head.

"That assassin wasn't some mercenary," she corrected. "My knowledge of Stasko's true identity is valuable enough that any mercenary who would be willing to take his money would rather keep me alive for that information instead of killing me. The only way to stop Stasko is to take him down for good."


	4. An Expected Journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission to take down Stasko begins

_One week later_

Charlie sat alone with Daisy in her hospital room.

"So, what's happening?" Daisy asked.

"Brass has approved us going in after Stasko," Charlie informed her, "but you are not to come with."

"Why not? I'm going to be healthy enough to leave the hospital soon enough, and I'll be well enough to go on the mission."

"It isn't your health that's the issue," Charlie explained, "you're not trained to go on a mission like this."

"I know how to use a gun," Daisy remarked, "and I can handle being fired at just fine."

"You're a civilian, not a solider."

"Being a non-combatant doesn't mean that you won't end up in the middle of a firefight," Daisy replied, "not that Army Intell thought to train me in how to defend myself."

"Who taught you then?" Charlie asked an idea starting to form in his mind.

"Necessity," Daisy answered, "it was a skill I picked up while working in Africa for the CDC. Granted, I was using tranq darts on leopards so that I could test their blood for virus particles most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

Daisy nodded.

"There was one time, when I had to shoot a guy," she explained. "It was him or the lives of an entire village, the choice was obvious."

"So you have killed someone then?"

Daisy shook her head.

"Oh no, I didn't directly kill him. The fall down the cliff after I tranq'd him did him in," she clarified, "but that outcome was not unexpected when I took aim."

* * *

 

_Some time later, unknown location_

Daisy kept checking the straps buckling her into her seat in the cargo bay of the C-130.

Charlie, seated next to her, reached out and grabbed one of her hands. It was clammy and cold from the doctor's anxiety.

"Relax," he insisted, "You're firmly strapped in, that's not going to change on its own."

"From all the bouncing around we did on our way here, I'm convinced that the straps loosened," Daisy admitted.

"Don't worry," Charlie reassured her, "the straps didn't loosen from the bouncing, and they won't. You have my word."

* * *

 

_Two hours later, in the air_

Daisy held Charlie's hand in a death grip, forcing the bones of his hand to rub together painfully. Charlie let her be despite the pain she was causing him, because he was sure that if he spoke up, he would embarrass the doctor, especially since this surely wasn't her first time riding in the back of a military cargo plane.

Actually, now that he thought about it, that prior experience was likely a factor in how she was behaving now...


	5. Secret Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Yes, the title of this chapter is a reference to Avatar: the Last Airbender.  
> -Stasko's castle is based off Castle Cousland from Dragon Age: Origins.

_Somewhere in Ukraine_

"I hate jumping out of perfectly good airplanes," muttered Daisy as she shrugged off the harness to her parachute.

"You get used to the concept after awhile," Charlie softly informed her as he came up behind her.

Before he could say any more, Daisy had him pinned to the ground, a dagger to his throat.

"Easy, doc, it's just me," Charlie assured her.

Daisy backed down. "Sorry, you startled me."

"Don't be sorry," Charlie corrected her, "It was my fault for coming up behind you like that. You did the right thing."

"I could have _killed_ you," Daisy objected.

"I wouldn't have let you do that," he reassured her. "Let's go and get this mission over with."

* * *

 

_ Several hours later _

Charlie and Daisy were the last to arrive at the prearranged meeting place.

By several hours.

"Nice of you two to join us," Hector remarked drily.

"We got lost," Daisy remarked, "but we managed to get ourselves un-lost eventually, as you can see."

Charlie rolled his eyes behind her.

"I wasn't going to blame the y chromosome in our group, but I think I will," Daisy declared, somehow sensing Charlie's eyeroll.

Hector chuckled.

"The doc's got your number, man," he observed with a grin.

"Now that we're all here, let's get on with the mission," Blaine stated, reining in the banter.

"What's the plan, boss?" Charlie asked.

"Our target's holed up in a fortress with all the latest toys," Blaine replied, "So far, there are no obvious weaknesses."

"Which is why I am here," Daisy remarked.

"You're here to identify Stasko so we can take him down," Mack corrected her. "You are not to engage him, doctor."

Daisy pouted.

"It'd be best if I went in alone," she pointed out, "I know what he looks like and I can take him out on my own."

Blaine shook his head.

"No," he said firmly. He would not permit anyone under his command to risk themselves in such a way.

Especially not a civilian.

* * *

 

_Several more hours later_

"We've been watching the place for several hours now, and we have yet to find any hints of weakness in Stasko's security," Charlie remarked.

"Well, we could use the secret tunnel made back in the days when this land was a fiefdom," Daisy remarked softly.

Hector turned and faced her.

"Secret tunnel?" he demanded "What are you talking about, Doc?"

"Stasko's fortress," Daisy explained, "It's from the Dark Ages. It might have a secret passage, for use in case of the castle being besieged by enemies."

"Stasko likely knows about it, if it exists," Brown remarked.

"And he might not know about it," Daisy countered, "or it's caved in, or doesn't exist. We have to risk it if we're going to take Stasko down."

"That's why you wanted to go in alone, isn't it?" Charlie guessed, "You're smaller than the rest of us."

Daisy nodded.

"Plus one person can do more in secret than several," she added.

"I am not letting you go in there alone, doctor," Blaine insisted.

"If the doctor can find this secret tunnel, I'll go in with her," Charlie volunteered. "Just the two of us can get in easily enough."

* * *

 

_ Two days later _

It took awhile, but eventually, Daisy was able to figure out where the secret passage she thought might exist was.

"If it's caved in, came back," Blaine ordered, "don't risk trying to clear it. Even if you succeed in clearing it without getting killed, it could still alert Stasko to your presence in the tunnel."

"Yes, sir," Charlie confirmed, "I'll make sure we both come back in that case."

Daisy scowled but didn't say anything. She knew that Charlie was right about what she would do in that case.


	6. Where in the Castle are Daisy and Charlie?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Daisy enter the secret tunnel, and hash a few details out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit here where racist imagery is used and identified as being racist. If you are sensitive to such things, this is your head's up about it. There's also at least one somewhat misogynistic reference made here and I failed to write in a comment to counter the remark I did pick up on during my review for problematic stuff, and I apologize for that failure but I was unable to figure out how to edit in a line to correct the character who made the comment and also maintain the flow of the story as I wanted it to flow.

_ Sometime later _

"Where would this tunnel entrance in the castle be?" Charlie asked softly to the darkness ahead of him, where Daisy led the way at her insistence.

"The kitchens or the dungeons," Daisy replied, "though any where is possible, I suppose. Those are just the two most likely candidates, though."

"I still don't like you leading the way," Charlie grumbled.

"Like I said before, it makes the most sense for me to lead since I am smaller than you. If I get stuck, there's no way you would have been able to get thru anyways, whereas the reverse is not true. Besides, I am armed. I can handle myself well enough to deal with trouble while you pull yourself out of the tunnel once we've reached our destination."

"I know, but that still doesn't change my opinion on the matter," Charlie groused.

Daisy chuckled softly in the darkness. Charlie was sure she was smiling.

* * *

 

"They have been in there for a while," Brown remarked, "think they've reached the castle yet?"

"Maybe," Hector acknowledged, "Or they could have encountered a cave in and are on their way back right as we speak. It's hard to say for sure, and that uncertainty could get us all killed."

"It's nothing we can't handle," Blaine stated bluntly.

* * *

 

Daisy grazed her hand against solid stone and came to a stop.

In the darkness, Charlie didn't see that she had stopped, and so ended up colliding with her.

"What's wrong?" he whispered, "Cave in?"

Daisy didn't answer right away, busy using her hands to feel the shapes of the stone in front of her.

"Doc?"

"It's a door," Daisy finally whispered back, "I can't find the latch to open it from this side."

"Maybe there isn't one," Charlie remarked, "maybe it can only be opened from within the castle."

"No, I am not going to give up now, not when I'm this close," Daisy stubbornly insisted, "I am _not_ letting Stasko go."

In her frustration, Daisy slammed her hand against the side of the tunnel hard, pushing against stone with force.

The stone gave under her hand with a click that Daisy was sure had been heard throughout the castle. Medieval gears that had not been greased in centuries ground into life, slowly opening the heavy stone door keeping Daisy and Charlie from entering the castle.

Doctor and soldier blinked in the dim light after having been in the total darkness of the tunnel for awhile.

Daisy crawled forward, out of the tunnel. Her eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the light, and she ended up tumbling headfirst out of the secret tunnel and landing in an undignified heap on the cold stone floor of the castle's large pantry.

"You okay?" Charlie whispered, scanning the pantry as best he could for any threats to the doctor's safety as he spoke.

"Just bruised," Daisy muttered, getting up and dusting herself off. She'd managed to twist her wrist, if the throbbing pain she could feel emitting from it was anything to go by, but she didn't mention it to Charlie.

"So now what?" Charlie asked the doctor, figuring she'd be able to navigate their way thru the castle the same way she'd known about the secret tunnel.

"We find Stasko," Daisy stated, "If he's anything like how I figured him to be, we'll find him in the throne room, surrounded by guards."

"That sounds like a bad idea," Charlie remarked.

"We could try hiding in his bedroom and waiting for the cover of nightfall to take him out," Daisy suggested.

"That sounds like a better idea, if we can get to his room without getting caught," Charlie remarked, "surely Stasko has cameras every where."

Daisy grinned.

"I may know a trick or two that'll get us past those cameras," she informed Charlie.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" he asked, a bit concerned--the doctor seemed to be capable of anything.

"Stasko has a thing for pretty people," Daisy explained, "particularly those of what could be described as 'exotic'--like the two of us, for instance."

"Are you suggesting that we pose as hookers?" Charlie demanded.

Daisy nodded.

"Just let me do all the talking, though," she requested.

"Wait, what if the guards recognize you?" Charlie asked, suddenly realizing the possible flaw in her plan.

"They wouldn't," Daisy replied, "I doubt that Stasko would have allowed the guards who let me go live, considering he's trying to kill me."

"Good point," Charlie agreed.

* * *

 

_several hours later_

Charlie hoped they had time to change out of the clothes they now wore before they rejoined the rest of the team.

"You look really nice in blue, Charlie," Daisy observed with a grin, clearly enjoying the soldier's discomfort.

"This is insane," Charlie insisted crossly.

"It's a sparkly Hawaiian shirt," Daisy remarked, "It's not as bad as what I have on."

"All you have on is a lovely dress from...what, Kenya?"

"It does seem like it is from Kenya, yes," Daisy agreed, "but I'm not from Kenya, and neither are either of my parents. It's _racist_."

"My only defense is to point out that this mess was entirely _your_ idea."

Daisy snorted.

"I know," she acknowledged, "And this outfit will only serve to make Stasko's death all the sweeter."

Charlie nodded. He understood what the doctor was getting at, and completely empathized with her.

Killing people wasn't something to enjoy, but there was indeed _some_ joy to be felt in killing a man like Stasko.


	7. The Moment of Truth Approaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The confrontation with Stasko begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some lines of dialogue in this that may be triggering. And are also in Ukrainian--at least, as close to being in Ukrainian as is possible when using Google Translate. The lines are translated into English at the end of the chapter.

_ Dusk _

"Think Charlie and the doctor are alright?" Hector asked.

"Nothing's changed in the castle," Brown observed, "It would seem as though Stasko has yet to learn of their presence in the castle, if they did manage to reach the castle."

"For now, no news is good news," Blaine stated, "but if we don't hear from Charlie or the good doctor by sunrise, we will have to assume that they have failed in their attempt to breach the castle, in which case it is up to us to complete the mission. With Stasko dealt with, we will be able to launch a search for our missing people."

* * *

 

_Meanwhile...._

"How much longer do we have to wait?" Charlie whispered.

"Not much longer," Daisy mumbled in reply, "soon Stasko shall come, expecting a night of carnal pleasures with a couple of local sex workers."

"How are we going to kill him?" Charlie asked in a low murmur, "you insisted we leave everything behind in the tunnel."

"Stasko will provide the means to his own execution," Daisy calmly assured Charlie.

The soldier's gut instinct, honed by years spent in the line of fire, flared in warning at the doctor's words. Things were going to get extremely bloody tonight, and while Charlie was not the sort of person to be easily thrown by a messy kill, he did very much prefer clean kills.

_Though perhaps a messy death would be a just end for Vladimir Stasko_ , he acknowledged to himself, as the door knob to the bedroom twisted.

* * *

 

Daisy's heart began to pound in her chest as the door opened to reveal Stasko. She waited for the door to click shut behind the arms dealer before standing up.

Stasko chuckled.

"I am not going to harm you, girl," he stated in thickly-accented English.

_Oh god, he knows it's me,_ Daisy thought to herself, _he could have his gun on him instead of the knife I was expecting him to have._

Even as she panicked, Daisy stuck to her pretense, and feigned ignorance of what Stasko had said.

"YA ne rozumiyu, ser," she said, trying her hardest not to let her voice shake.

"Rozuminnya ye neobkhidnoyu, divchynka. Vy i vash suputnyk tut vyklyuchno, shcob dohodyty meni v moyemu lizhku. Vashi rodyny budut' vynahorodzheni shynku," Stasko informed her.

Daisy's blood ran cold at his words. _Stasko is a crueler man than I thought._

Stasko seemed to take Daisy's silence as consent--not that he would have stopped had she attempted to refuse him--, as he reached out for her.

"Rozkazhit' svoyemu amerykans'komu lyudyni pity u vidstavku, abo ya skazhu yomu pravdu pro vas," Stasko hissed in Daisy's ear.

Daisy swallowed. She knew his threat was real.

* * *

 

Stasko had placed Daisy in a difficult situation--turn on Charlie or having her own dark past revealed...and what hope would she have of Charlie trusting her ever again if he knew who she really was?

The arms dealer wasn't going to give her long to decide, as she discovered moments later.

"Daisy, why don't you tell your friend who you really are," he suggested in his thickly-accented English.

Charlie frowned, unsure as to what was going on.

"Charlie, stand down. I got this," Daisy stated, feigning confidence she most certainly lacked.

The soldier sighed.

"Daisy, what is going on? What happened to our plan?" he asked.

"We're going with Plan F," Daisy replied, praying that it was a knife pressed against her thigh now, and not a certain part of Stasko's anatomy.

"We didn't agree on Plan F," Charlie pointed out, "You sure about this?"

"Positive," Daisy replied, feeling the sharp edge of Stasko's blade cut thru the thin fabric of her dress.

_How to disarm him?_

* * *

 

_Outside the castle_

"I don't like this," Hector grumbled. "One of us should go in after them now, and not wait for sunrise."

"Are you volunteering yourself?" Blaine asked.

Hector nodded.

But before any further discussion could occur, the sound of breaking glass and a man screaming as he plunged to his death on the hard earth far below the window he'd been flung thru.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. "I do not understand, sir."  
> 2\. "Understanding is unnecessary, girl. You and your companion are here solely to please me in my bed. Your families will be rewarded handsomely for your services."  
> 3\. "Tell your American man to stand down, or I will tell him the truth about you."


	8. The Moment of Truth Arrives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stasko's death happens, as expected. That is a fact. The how of his death...well, that's where the story is.

Fueled by adrenaline and aided by surprise, Daisy managed to keep Stasko from using his knife to kill her. But she was not strong enough to wrest the knife away from the arms dealer, and the fight was tiring her. It was a matter of time before she tired enough that Stasko would be able to easily subdue her, she was certain. The only chance she had was to risk everything in a full charge against him....

* * *

 

Charlie could not leap into the fray, not without endangering Daisy, an outcome he wanted to avoid at all costs.

Doctor and arms dealer were locked in a deadly dance, moving steadily closer to the large picture window made out of what Charlie assumed was bulletproof glass.

It wasn't bulletproof, as he soon discovered, when Daisy used her own momentum to throw Stasko out the window...and then fell thru the window after the arms dealer before Charlie could catch her.

* * *

 

With Stasko dead, his guards quickly surrendered to the unit, none of them putting up any sort of resistance. None, in fact, expressed any grief for the death of their employer, beyond a concern for putting food on the table for their families.

"Where's the doctor?" Blaine asked Charlie once the unit was reunited.

Charlie swallowed.

"Daisy's replacement as Stasko's personal physician is tending to her now, but it doesn't look good," Charlie replied. "He said that the only reason she's still breathing is because she landed on Stasko's corpse."

"What the hell happened?" Mack demanded.

Charlie told them everything.

* * *

 

The mission completed, Blaine was able to call in medical transport to take Daisy back to the States.

She flatlined twice before they even left Ukrainian air space, but some how, the doctors fighting to keep her alive managed to bring her back each time her heart tried to give up. But it was a battle the doctors knew they were unlikely to win, for the fall had badly damaged the doctor's body.

And it was indeed a battle they would lose, as Daisy breathed her last just as the transport crossed into American air space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have plans of eventually writing a sequel or coda to this story, in which Charlie grieves over Daisy's death.


End file.
